The following background discussion is not an admission that anything discussed below is citable as prior art or common general knowledge. The documents listed below are incorporated herein in their entirety by this reference to them.
Single serve capsules adapted for use in machines to prepare a desired consumable product are becoming increasingly popular. Such capsules come in a variety of formats for producing consumable products such as coffee, tea or hot chocolate.
In North America, a leading provider of capsules and capsule machines is Keurig Green Mountain Inc. This company produces K-Cup™ capsules and Keurig™ capsule machines also known as brewers). K-Cup™ capsules have a first chamber defined by a paper filter that is loosely packed with ingredients (such as ground coffee) and a second chamber downstream of the first chamber that defines an empty space for receiving a prepared product that flows through the paper filter prior to dispensing into a cup.
A predetermined volume of heated water is injected by a Keurig™ machine into the first chamber of a K-cup™ coffee capsule at a predetermined flow rate. The heated water flows through the ingredients in the capsule and contacts the paper filter. The bottom portion of the paper filter quickly becomes saturated and allows the prepared product to flow through the filter at substantially the same flow rate as fluid enters the capsule. As a result, the fluid tends to continuously flow through the ingredients with less than optimum mixing and extraction. It has been found that ingredients in K-cup™ capsules used in Keurig™ machines are not optimally saturated other than ingredients disposed along the central fluid flow path of the capsule. Nonetheless, K-cup™ capsules remain a leading brand of capsules in the North American single serve coffee market.
The optimum conditions for preparing drip-style coffee differ from the optimum conditions for preparing other forms of consumable products. For example, certain consumable products, such as whole leaf tea products, benefit from soaking or steeping (the term steeping will be used hereafter) the precursor ingredients in a fluid, such as heated water, for a desired period of time prior to dispensing into a user's cup. Such products often also benefit from a mixing or turbulence of the precursor ingredients within the fluid during the steeping phase.
A problem with conventional capsules and capsule machines such as the K-cup™ capsules and Keurig™ machines is that their structure and operations are designed primarily for the purpose of preparing drip-style filtered coffee. This problem is exasperated by the desire to produce a prepared beverage in a relatively short time frame (60 seconds or less) thus requiring fluid to be injected into the machine at a relatively high flow rate.
This problem could be addressed by designing capsule machines that provide optimum conditions for preparing a steeped consumable product. This does not provide a solution for consumers who desire a shorter preparation time or who already own a conventional capsule machine and wish to avoid acquiring a new appliance however.
There is a need for a capsule that is adapted to provide improved conditions for preparing a steeped consumable product. There is also a need for such a capsule to be used with conventional capsule machines.